The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
Delete. Nominated for prod delete, but disputed. This article is completely unsourced, and describes an aviation incident wherein no lives were lost. Moreover, it is not listed in any of the more notable lists of aviation accidents and incidents, such as the Aviation Safety Network[1] or similar sites. Google searches show almost no hits to describe this incident, and in the course of editing, the article's claims (including flight numbers, number of injuries, and the seriousness of damage) have oscillated wildly. Based on this, it does not appear that this article is relevant enough to retain, or that sufficient resources could be found in order to make this article meet any standards for encyclopaedic, sourced content. Sacxpert04:34, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as ground incursions are unfortunately a daily occurrence in aviation. The lack of injury and quotidian circumstances argue against this being in any way a notable exception. --Dhartung | Talk05:18, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would think that ground incursions between two large commercial jetliners are quite rare and certainly not daily. --Oakshade22:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Several hundred a year, says the NTSB, although the vast majority of these do not result in collisions or serious mishaps. Sacxpert22:32, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I just relized the term "incursion" refers to when aircraft come within too close of one another while a "collision" is when aircrafts actually collide. There are not several hundred collisions a year according to the NTSB. --Oakshade00:45, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly what I said. And, yes, I would tend to assume that several hundred annual ground incursions includes non-commercial aircraft, although I'm not sure. Sacxpert09:13, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This commercial jetliner flight was involved in a collision which makes it notable, not a one of hundreds-per-year incursion. --Oakshade16:17, 18 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep Notable enough to have an entire episode of Mayday (TV series) produced about it (#12, season 4). Sourcing is a problem of Wikipedia:Cleanup not deletion - I am sure if you dig far back enough you'll find Thai-language sources that are no longer accessible by a cursory English Google search. Wl21911:22, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: A TV program doing an episode is not necessarily sufficient justification for a page. Disasters of the Century covers many incidents, most of which do not have discrete pages. For an incident of this type, non-notable and lacking in solid references ("cursory" searches aside, doesn't the fact that the Aviation Safety Network, a very thorough, well-referenced source makes no mention of this incident a good argument that it is non-notable?), it seems that the subject matter could be better left to the "accidents and incidents" section of the Thai Airways International and Don Mueang International Airport pages. Sacxpert19:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Only if you believe ASN is (a) 100% complete and (b) infallible and (c) should be the dispositive benchmark of aviation incident notability on WP. Can you show that a, b, and c are all true? Also, a glance at the Disasters of the Century article shows that about half (~18/36) do have WP articles, so your comparison is flawed. Wl21920:50, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: That is a straw man argument. I am not claiming infallibility for ASN; I do claim that it's a fairly complete source, and the lack of mention, not only there, but also at AirDisaster.com and Planecrashinfo.com, strongly suggests that there is little notability to this incident. Using your argument, can you prove that Mayday is both infallible and a perfect benchmark for notability? The wildly ranging claims on the Wikipedia article (between 0 and 400 injuries, between 0 and 2 planes destroyed) also point to the murkiness of this incident. Likewise, your assertion that you are "sure" of Thai-language sources is unproven. PS -- At the risk of being slightly pedantic, 21 of 37 incidents on the Disasters of the Century page have no discrete article. However, of those 21, eleven have discussions or sections within other articles, which seems, as I said previously, the most reasonable way to present the content of this incident. Sacxpert21:41, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Then you are essentially making an argument about content disputes and merging rather than deletion. These are disputes to be handled in RfC on its talk page, not in AfD. Also, the Mayday episode satisfies notability regardless of whether I think it's infallible or not. The fact that ASN et al don't have it is the same as a WP:GHITS argument which should be avoided. Wl21922:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Keep That "no lives were lost" is a stronger argument for keeping than for deletion. We are used to a "bad news" media bias that seems to view that an aircraft accident is worth major coverage only if lots and lots of people get killed. Or if it's a near miss, let's face it, it has to be a USA near-miss, not something that happened in some third world place most CNN and Fox viewers can't find on a globe (if they know what a globe is). I mean, six hundred and twenty-four people (624) on two jet airplanes that have caught on fire and all 624 escape without a single fatality? Damn, that's pretty significant! So find some sources and beef it up. This is a keeper.Mandsford15:05, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
How about 624 people being rescued (remember, a lot of them were injured) off of two planes that were destroyed by fire? If a successful rescue had "almost" happened, but failed, would it have been more interesting if 100 or so had burned to death? It's the culture we live in, as managed by the news media.... death is interesting (and even really cool if it's nobody you care about). Mandsford18:14, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep if it can be sourced and verified. A collision and subsequent explosion involving commercial aircraft is sufficiently notable enough regardless of the death toll, or lack thereof. If there can be no consensus to delete an article about airplanes that almost crashed in San Francisco then I really can't imagine the community coming to a consensus to delete an article about an actual collision. ɑʀкʏɑɴ20:46, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - Just a quick search and found an English language The Nation article describing how the incident has instigated further regulations [2]. Certainly notable in the aviation world. Deaths aren't the only aspect of a topic that can make it notable. --Oakshade22:02, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: This may be another fact/content point, but note that in the admittedly short article, the Deputy Transport Minister said "It caused minor damage but this incident should not have happened." Minor damage? Is that notable? Sacxpert22:37, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Every minor incident can lead to a review of regulations and gov't. scrutiny. I don't dispute that deaths are not the only criterion, but note that in the Windsor incident and British Airways Flight 9, or the Logan incident, are significant because they indicated significant problems with either aircraft design or operational procedures (Logan because it exposed continuing failure of ATC separation and the need for ground radar, and because it waqs so close to danger, BA 9 because it demonstrated the danger of aircraft operation near ash clouds. Parking in the wrong spot, contrary to procedures, might be notable if a disaster did happen, but absent that, it and a subsequent low-speed ground collision is not automatically notable, because all it demonstrates is that people make mistakes. By itself, that is not notable unless serious damage, injury, or industry-wide reforms occur. We don't document every incursion because they are not, individually, significant unless imminent danger was present. Sacxpert22:53, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not every aviation topic must be the "Jakarta Incident". This was the primary subject of a secondary reliable source (in a country where English is not the primary language and likely much more sources are in foreign languages) and it does spark safety reforms. If you feel that there must be mass carnage or the effect must be "industry wide", then okay. Some editors disagree. --Oakshade00:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Weak Keep usually, there are tons of articles when plane accidents occur, and I'd assume this is the case since this plane actually exploded. Corpx03:42, 16 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Delete aircraft are always hitting each other on the ground, something not right with the article - the intro mentions an explosion but the official report does not - why would you want to change an aircraft that had exploded ! MilborneOne19:00, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Exactly the problem! Nobody seems to know if none, one, or both of the aircraft involved exploded, and there don't seem to be sources from which to build a conclusion either way. The article mentioned above says nothing about anything except "minor damage," with no mention of any injuries. What a mess. Sacxpert05:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep - While the article doesn't meet the draft notability standards being discussed at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aviation/Aviation accident task force, there is an "unusual" circumstance involved here that sets this incident apart, and that is the time of discovery...just before the aircraft was to take off. There's plenty of ramp rash incidents, but to have one happen to this magnitude and the crew of the offending aircraft not notice at the time (nor to have ground crews notice), bespeaks of systemic problems, and it is that factor which, IMHO, makes this one notable. AKRadeckiSpeaketh13:30, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: That's one more point of the story that seems unclear. Was it noticed at the time; if not, how soon after? Did the planes explode before or after someone noticed. It's so bloody contradictory. Sacxpert16:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Agreed...but that calls for a cleanup tag, not for deletion. This is one reason we have a task force...so that such articles can be brought to our attention and addressed. AKRadeckiSpeaketh17:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.